Notorious drug lord Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán convicted

Mexico's near-mythical outlaw, who spent years running an industrial-scale smuggling operation, could spend decades in a maximum-security US prison. The complex trial lasted three months.

United States Drug Enforcement Administration/AP

Authorities escort Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán (c.) from a plane to a waiting caravan of SUVs at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. The notorious Mexican drug lord was convicted of drug-trafficking charges, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019, in federal court in New York.

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February 13, 2019

By Tom HaysAssociated Press

New York

Mexico's most notorious drug lord, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, was convicted Tuesday of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation after a three-month trial packed with Hollywood-style tales of grisly killings, political payoffs, cocaine hidden in jalapeño cans, jewel-encrusted guns, and a naked escape with his mistress through a tunnel.

Mr. Guzmán listened to a drumbeat of guilty verdicts on drug and conspiracy charges that could put the escape artist behind bars for decades in a maximum-security US prison selected to thwart another one of the breakouts that made him a folk hero in his native country.

A jury whose members' identities were kept secret as a security measure reached a verdict after deliberating six days in the expansive case. They sorted through what authorities called an "avalanche" of evidence gathered since the late 1980s that Guzmán and his murderous Sinaloa drug cartel made billions in profits by smuggling tons of cocaine, heroin, meth, and marijuana into the US.

As the judge read the verdict, Guzmán stared at the jury, and his wife watched the scene, both with resignation in their faces. When the jurors were discharged and Guzmán stood to leave the courtroom, the couple traded thumbs-ups.

US District Judge Brian Cogan lauded the jury's meticulous attention to detail and the "remarkable" approach it took toward deliberations. Mr. Cogan said it made him "very proud to be an American."

Evidence showed drugs poured into the US through secret tunnels or hidden in tanker trucks, concealed in the undercarriage of passenger cars and packed in rail cars passing through legitimate points of entry – suggesting that a border wall wouldn't be much of a worry.

The prosecution's case against Guzmán, a roughly 5 1/2-foot figure whose nickname translates to "Shorty," included the testimony of several turncoats and other witnesses. Among them were Guzmán's former Sinaloa lieutenants, a computer encryption expert, and a Colombian cocaine supplier who underwent extreme plastic surgery to disguise his appearance.

One Sinaloa insider described Mexican workers getting contact highs while packing cocaine into thousands of jalapeño cans – shipments that totaled 25 to 30 tons of cocaine worth $500 million each year. Another testified how Guzmán sometimes acted as his own sicario, or hitman, punishing a Sinaloan who dared to work for another cartel by kidnapping him, beating, and shooting him and having his men bury the victim while he was still alive, gasping for air.

The defense case lasted just half an hour. Guzmán's lawyers did not deny his crimes as much as argue he was a fall guy for government witnesses who were more evil than he was.

US Attorney Richard Donoghue called the conviction "a victory for the American people who suffered so much" while the defendant poured poison over the borders. He expected Guzmán to get life without parole.

"It is a sentence from which there is no escape and no return," Mr. Donoghue told a news conference outside the courthouse, through snow and sleet.

He added: "There are those who say the war on drugs is not worth fighting. Those people are wrong."

Ray Donovan, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York office, said the case underscored Guzmán's true colors, showing that "the real Chapo is a ruthless killer and manipulator."

Mr. Lichtman said the defense "fought like complete savages" and will appeal the case. "No matter who the defendant is, you still have to fight to the death."

He said his client was a positive thinker who "doesn't give up."

Upon hearing the verdict, Guzmán was "as cool as a cucumber," Lichtman added. "Honest to god, we were more upset than he was."

Deliberations were complicated by the trial's vast scope. Jurors were tasked with making 53 decisions about whether prosecutors had proven different elements of the case.

The trial cast a harsh glare on the corruption that allowed the cartel to flourish. Colombian trafficker Alex Cifuentes caused a stir by testifying that former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto took a $100 million bribe from Guzmán. Mr. Peña Nieto denied it, but the allegation fit a theme: politicians, army commanders, police, and prosecutors, all on the take.

The tension at times was cut by some of the trial's sideshows, such as the sight of Guzmán and his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, showing up in matching burgundy velvet blazers in a gesture of solidarity. Another day, a Chapo-size actor who played the kingpin in the TV series "Narcos: Mexico" came to watch, telling reporters that seeing the defendant flash him a smile was "surreal."

While the trial was dominated by Guzmán's persona as a near-mythical outlaw who carried a diamond-encrusted handgun and stayed one step ahead of the law, the jury never heard from Guzmán himself, except when he told the judge he wouldn't testify.

But his sing-songy voice filled the courtroom, thanks to recordings of intercepted phone calls. "Amigo!" he said to a cartel distributor in Chicago. "Here at your service."

One of the trial's most memorable tales came from girlfriend Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, who testified she was in bed in a safe house with an on-the-run Guzmán in 2014 when Mexican marines started breaking down his door. She said Guzmán led her to a trap door beneath a bathtub that opened up to a tunnel that allowed them to escape.

Asked what he was wearing, she replied: "He was naked. He took off running. He left us behind."

The defendant had previously escaped from jail by hiding in a laundry bin in 2001. He then got an escort from crooked police officers into Mexico City before retreating to one of his many mountainside hideaways. In 2014, he pulled off another jail break, escaping through a mile-long lighted tunnel on a motorcycle on rails.

Even when Guzmán was recaptured in 2016 before his extradition to the United States, he was plotting another escape, prosecutor Andrea Goldbarg said in closing arguments.